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Author Topic: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful  (Read 31027 times)

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Offline Mark 79

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Re: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful
« Reply #60 on: April 21, 2022, 11:19:31 AM »
Quote from: Matthew on April 21, 2022, 09:30:12 AM
Sean, according to your whole argument then Catholics everywhere need to boycott Big Pharma.

I hold that man-made drugs have much *worse* side effects, and offer less benefits, than certain substances found in pot (talk to Mark79 about the details; I'm not an expert at all)

I trust natural remedies quite a bit, and at any rate I don't trust Big Pharma *at all*.

If it's moral to fill prescriptions at your pharmacy -- ingesting OBJECTIVELY POISONOUS substances made by Big Pharma, despite the possibility of serious side effects -- then it's hard to argue you can't take medicinal pot for similarly good reasons.

Marijuana is safer than any chemical in the pharmacy, even aspirin and Tylenol.
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Offline Miser Peccator

Re: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful
« Reply #61 on: April 21, 2022, 11:25:01 AM »
Quote from: Mark 79 on April 21, 2022, 10:50:40 AM


 Because of my 12 year advocacy of appropriate medical usage, I have met and spoken in detail with several hundred (?thousand?) patients who have explicitly stated their careful titration of MJ dosing.


Of course I keep this low profile. I choose to avoid and choose to help those priests avoid the rabid lunacy of the ignorati such as we have seen here.

This is wise and prudent.  

St Mary MacKillop founded an order of nuns in Australia in the 1800s.  She suffered regularly from female issues that left her incapacited for many days.  The doctor gave her a flask of brandy which she carried and she would need to take a swig from time to time in order to help with the pain, cramping and suffering while continuing her duties running the order.

Unfortunately some of the sisters found out and spread rumors that she was an alcoholic.
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Offline Mark 79

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Re: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful
« Reply #62 on: April 21, 2022, 11:26:21 AM »
Quote from: SeanJohnson on April 21, 2022, 09:35:13 AM
That’s part of my argument:

The impairment of the faculties is significantly higher in 1-2 puffs of MJ, than in 1-2 beers (and therefore the argument they amount to the same level of impairment is false.  But that is precisely the argument some have made.

Note, however, the level of impairment is not the only cause of sinfulness (contrary to what you said above).

That's not true. Repeating yourself does not make it true.

You say you can have 1-2 glasses of wine without impairment. I am a lightweight. ½ glass and I am giggly. A full glass and I am asleep.

Our bodies metabolize chemicals through many different systems. People have different proportions and efficacy of those various metabolic systems, hence the morally acceptable dose of alcohol or MJ varies from person to person. It is that individual response that matters theologically, not whether or not that dose of alcohol or MJ affects you personally.
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Offline SeanJohnson

Re: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful
« Reply #63 on: April 21, 2022, 11:28:26 AM »
Quote from: Mark 79 on April 21, 2022, 11:19:31 AM
Marijuana is safer than any chemical in the pharmacy, even aspirin and Tylenol.

Medical studies and statistics from the Thomistic article I posted on p.3 of this thread suggest otherwise:


The Short-term and Long-term Effects of Recreational Marijuana Use

Human flourishing includes both physical and mental health, and a complete analysis of the morality of recreational marijuana use should take both of these dimensions of a person's well-being into consideration. As we will see, in contradiction to the commonplace belief that marijuana used recreationally is essentially harmless, medical science has now shown that it in fact damages the user's physical and mental health in both the short and the long-term. Thus, recreational marijuana is not harmless. It is not safe.

The short-term effects of recreational marijuana use can be directly linked to its most psychoactive ingredient, delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (D9-THC). When marijuana is smoked, D9-THC makes its way from the lungs to the bloodstream and thence throughout the body to all of the user's organs including his brain. As it circulates, D9-THC binds to cannabinoid receptors (CBRs), which are ordinarily activated by molecules such as 2-AG (2-archidonoyl glycerol) and AEA (arachidonoyl ethanolamide or anandamide) (Hall and Degenhardt 2009). Part of the body's endocannabinoid system, these endogenous molecules are involved in regulating a variety of emotional and cognitive behaviors in the human organism. D9-THC can over-stimulate a person's cannabinoid receptors, thereby causing the “high” or “stoned” feeling and the other effects associated with the use of cannabis (Hall and Degenhardt 2009; National Institute on Drug Abuse 2012). Importantly, there is data that suggests that the marijuana “high” itself is harmful: Within moments of its ingestion, cannabis decreases cortical dopamine levels, which are critical for high cognitive functions (Stokes et al. 2010). Often this “high” can be accompanied by other effects, including, among others, sensory distortion and hallucinations, panic and anxiety, poor coordination and lowered reaction time, inhibited learning and memory, and increased heart rate (Stokes et al. 2010).
In addition to the short-term effects, there are long-term effects on the recreational user of marijuana, most if not all of which are adverse to the well-being of the user. These detrimental effects are both physiological and cognitive in nature.

Physiologically, marijuana use has numerous adverse effects throughout the body. For example, cannabinoids have been linked to immunosuppression, i.e., the lowering of the activity of the user's immune system, which not surprisingly makes him more vulnerable to infection and to disease (Klein et al. 2003; Tanasescu and Constantinescu 2010). Chronic marijuana use can also lead to extensive airway injury and impairment, and alterations in the structure and the function of the pulmonary macrophages (Tashkin 2001; Aldington et al. 2007). Thus, it is not surprising that chronic users of marijuana have a higher risk for long-term pulmonary diseases including bronchitis and emphysema (Beshay et al. 2007). Finally, among the negative physical effects associated with or caused by smoking marijuana, cardiovascular harms are among the most concerning (Thomas et al. 2014). These include increased risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack), angina (chest pain), and fatal stroke (Jones 2002). However, because of the small number of studies there is still insufficient evidence to assess whether the all-cause mortality rate is elevated among cannabis users in the general population (Calabria et al. 2010). Thus, there is a need for long-term cohort studies that follow cannabis-using individuals into old age when detrimental effects of cannabis use are more likely to emerge among those who persist in using cannabis into middle age and older.

Next, cognitively, researchers have cataloged a growing number of adverse effects in frequent and/or long-term users of marijuana. Compared to demographically matched controls, marijuana users demonstrated relative cognitive impairments in verbal memory, spatial working memory, spatial planning, and decision-making (Schweinsburg et al. 2008; Tait et al. 2011; Crane et al. 2013; Becker et al. 2014). Even users who do not appear or feel intoxicated continue to manifest impairments over the course of the workweek (Wadsworth et al. 2006b). A meta-analysis suggests that, after chronic and long-term cannabis use, brain size will decrease in affected areas (Rocchetti et al. 2013). In addition, a study has revealed that even casual pot use causes major alterations in the human brain, though it is not clear if these changes are associated with apparent adverse effects in cognition or behavior (Gilman et al. 2014). This is one of several studies showing that regular use of cannabis is associated with altered brain morphology (Lorenzetti et al. 2014).
Significantly, marijuana use promotes addictive behaviors. Human and animal studies show that the THC in cannabis supports “the acquisition and maintenance of robust drug-taking behavior in subjects with no history of exposure to other drugs” (Justinova et al. 2005, 295). Furthermore, marijuana use affects a user's way of perceiving pleasure. The phenomenology is similar to that of other addictive drugs, especially in the way it reinforces pleasurable feelings of reward: As a person continues to use addictive drugs, he resets his threshold for stimulation of reward to a higher level (Wenger et al. 2003; Hyman et al. 2006; Panagis et al. 2014). This hijacking of the brain's reward pathways reduces the ability of natural rewards like food, relationships, and sex to trigger delight (Covey et al. 2014). Thus, the marijuana user distorts his ability to enjoy life and all that reality offers.

Among the most significant cognitive and psychiatric dangers posed by marijuana usage is its association with psychosis. Here we understand psychosis as a state of mind characterized by the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not (Russo et al. 2014). The risk of developing psychosis roughly doubles for regular cannabis users (Van Winkel and Kuepper 2014). It is not clear why this is so. Some suggest that cannabis use is a causal factor for schizophrenia while others suggest that schizophrenics are more likely to use cannabis (Degenhardt et al. 2003). However, there is data that suggests that, unlike alcohol, marijuana use actually precipitates schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders in a significant number of users (Large et al. 2011). Swedish investigators uncovered a dose–response relationship between frequency of cannabis use and risk for schizophrenia in a cohort of just over fifty thousand conscripts (Zammit et al. 2002). These findings have been corroborated by studies undertaken in other parts of the globe (Henquet et al. 2005; Moore et al. 2007; Chadwick et al. 2013).

Finally, the effects of marijuana use extend beyond the user. For example, a recent study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicinehas suggested that decriminalizing pot will likely lead to an increase in cases of children being unintentionally exposed to the drug, as measured by increased call volume to poison centers in the United States (Wang et al. 2014). Not surprisingly, some data suggests that cannabis amplifies risk factors associated with accidents and injuries, especially within the first sixty minutes after use (Wadsworth et al. 2006a; Pulido et al. 2011). Recreational marijuana use impacts not only the personal good of the user but also the common good of his family and his community.
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Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Why Marijuana is Gravely Sinful
« Reply #64 on: April 21, 2022, 11:30:01 AM »
Quote from: SeanJohnson on April 21, 2022, 10:30:19 AM
He never mentions marijuana (he mentions narcotics, which MJ is not), and even if he would have, he’s only discussing the issue of intoxication (which is not the only circuмstance pertaining to the morality of recreational marijuana).

He was using the term narcotics as a category of substances apart from alcohol which can bring about the loss of reason.  Nowhere in Jone is there any mention of marijuna per se, but it's considered to be part of the narcotics category as Jone defined it.

Intoxication (losing the use of reason) is in fact the only intrinsic issue pertaining to the morality of marijuana (aside from legality, risk of job loss, etc.).  Period.
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